Okay, so I'm going to be a senior this fall and I can't decide if I should apply this fall or wait another year. Here's a little background info: I went to a community college and graduated with a 3.87 gpa. But only got a 3.53 gpa for my first two semesters at a university and dropped a class but it was a W without penalty. I haven't taken my LSAT but I've been scoring between 169-172 for my practice tests. I haven't been taking my university courses seriously and have been waiting until last minute to study and write papers. I'm hoping that if I don't slack off and actually do my work ahead of time, I'll get close to 4.0 for my two remaining semesters. I know LSAC views all the grades the same but what about law schools? Do they care more about the cumm gpa or do they care more about ur gpa at a university? Should I wait to apply after I get my university gpa up?

My dream school is Harvard but I know the chances of that is relatively slim. If not Harvard I'm hoping for NYU or BU.

Last edited by floridagrl on Fri Jun 21, 2013 5:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

They care about your LSDAS gpa which is made up of all undergraduate courses taken before you graduate. Maybe HYS care about university courses and look down on cc classes, but the others don't seem to care as much. You should apply when you have the highest LSAT/gpa combo. I would suggest taking the year off though. I am so glad that I did. It also depends on what you will/can do with your year off. If you are cool with living with your parents and studying for your LSAT retake then go for it. Or if you have a decent major maybe you can get some decent work experience. Hope this helps.

I plan on taking a year off regardless of whether I apply now or wait. I was hoping to defer a year to either gain work experience or go study Chinese in China. I'm just not sure if I should wait to apply because my cumm gpa could go either way if I wait. If I do great my remaining semesters then obviously it'll go up but if I do mediocre then it'll go down. But with my university gpa the way it is right now, I'm not sure what my chances are of top 5.

When I said I graduated from CC I mean I got my AA and then transferred to a university. I'm still working on my bachelor's.

You should probably focus on your grades and the LSAT if you are going to take a year off anyway. Not that applications take that long if you wanted to throw a few out just to test the waters, but I imagine a 3.8 or so is still in play for you which would make you competitive for big money at some good schools if your LSAT is at the high end of your practice range.

floridagrl wrote:When I said I graduated from CC I mean I got my AA and then transferred to a university. I'm still working on my bachelor's.

Keep up the hard work - your LSDAS uGPA will be made up of all of your grades prior to the awarding of your first bachelor's degree. So all of the classes you took toward your AA will count, but so will everything else that you've taken / will take until you get your bachelor's

floridagrl wrote:That doesn't seem to be fair for those attending schools that don't offer anything above an A

I don't know that there's a fair way to do it. You could take their GPA and multiply it by 0.923 to convert it from a 4.3333-point scale to a 4-point scale, but that would screw the student if not all classes at their school offer the potential of an A+.

floridagrl wrote:That doesn't seem to be fair for those attending schools that don't offer anything above an A

I don't know that there's a fair way to do it. You could take their GPA and multiply it by 0.923 to convert it from a 4.3333-point scale to a 4-point scale, but that would screw the student if not all classes at their school offer the potential of an A+.

If not Harvard, you should be shooting for the rest of the T14 in order (so Columbia or Chicago should be before NYU). Only if you cannot get into any of them, should you even consider BU.

Anyway a 3.8 and a 172 will probably get you into Harvard. a 174+ would virtually lock it. So get your grades and LSAT up and good luck.

You put way too much stock in rankings if you think its that specific. We put them in tiers for a reason. There are plenty of good reasons for a student to take NYU over Chi. Plenty of reasons to take NU over Mich, etc.I agree however not to go to BU, or any non-t14 for that matter short of full ride.